Soon, the two were wrestling on the ground, kicking and punching, throwing elbows, knees into groins, headbuts, screams, and yells. Vanii bit Yakob to really sell the illusion. In the scuffle, Yakob knocked each and every one of the Inhibitors he had placed earlier out of position. He disguised loosening Vanii's restraints as a failed attempt at a pin. Vanii gave him a solid punch across the jaw, then pushed up and away, aiming for one of the many tunnels leading to the dark underbelly.
Yakob's ears were ringing, blood pumping to his head, filling his brain with a rhythmic, rushing thumping. He could make out dull shouts that sounded too far away to make any sense. There was clamouring, and then...
Everything stopped.
Yakob held a hand to his temple and stumbled to his feet. The guards from above had rushed down, and Brutus and Lauren were also standing at attention.
From the pitch blackness in the tunnel Vanii had chosen emerged two men - Yakob knew both of them very well.
The edges of their bodies melted into the darkness where the black of the cave met their midnight uniforms. Two Trenmir soldiers; officers.
Vanii was on the ground before the first. Darian looked down at him with a quiet rage behind his eyes, coiled and ready to burst. Vanii fumbled backwards as Darian advanced on him, stepping into the light. He wasn't wearing his half-mask, not around these people who saw his necrotic flesh as a badge of office. The rot had advanced, taking two thirds of the skin from his face now.
Vanii's eyes were fixed resolutely on the man behind him, however. He was taller, thinner, more sinister. Crimson coloured eyes peered down a sharp beak of a nose at the outnumbered prisoner. His pristine alabaster skin, unblemished in stark contrast to Darian's, belied no emotion.
Even with vision as blurred as his was, Yakob easily recognised his mentor. The man wearing the uniform of a Tomb Trenmir Eidolon was his mentor: Enoch Kaige. He was the instructor for the Aquarius path at Avidia Institute and taught Yakob everything he knew about his Rank One abilities. He had been the person to propose this plan of espionage within the Trenmir.
"You..." Vanii said.
A high pitched laugh escaped from Yakob's lips. This was all going to shit. Arria was right. He was going to get killed for Enoch's stupid plan. Vanii was going to expose them both.
"Sir!" Lauren nearly smacked herself in her eagerness to salute Enoch. His red eyes slid from Vanii to her with the indolence of a satiated predator. "The filth before you is a Scorpio Drai, apprehended on the streets for suspicious behaviours when he began attacking the members of TU-BV14. He is believed to be related to Amos Aquila. We regrettably report the death of Jackie Sallek, Lawkeeper of TU-BV14. No civilian casualties."
The false Eidolon nodded and flapped his hand at Darian. "Go on then," he said with a slight smile.
"Wait!" Vanii screeched, "You're making a mistake. We can figure something out, Eno-"
But it was too late. Before he had even begun speaking, Darian erupted into violence. Two animated corpses burst from the walls at his signal, one gripping his head, silencing him, and the other pinning the exhausted Drai to the ground. Vanii didn't even have a chance to check his mana reserves before Darian was drawing his curved dagger and pressing it into his side.
"Precision," he muttered, pressing the blade into flesh and drawing blood, "keeps the body intact for reanimation. And dead men are much more... forthcoming in interrogations. You will prove a great asset when I am done with you, Cursed."
Vanii's last act before Darian killed him was to bite his tongue off.
His eyes sought Yakob and said everything at once - an apology, an admission of guilt, a profession of faith, a resolution not to betray him, a smile and a sadness. The blood that bound his wordless oath dribbled from the cracks between the corpse's vile fingers covering his mouth, keeping his screams inside while he thrashed.
Darian tutted, disappointed but not disheartened. He gave up on precision at the first sign of resistance. Darian pulled the dagger from Vanii's side and plunged it into his skull. The screams stopped. His corpses crumbled once they were no longer needed.
"Inefficient, Darian," Enoch said. "How can you advance to Albedo with such behaviour?"
Darian kneeled, "Apologies master, may I take the body away?"
"Please," Enoch dismissed him. When the Putresco was gone, he turned to the remaining members of TU-BV14. "An apt punishment for the crime. I daresay, we shall need a new Lawkeeper in this unit. Are there any volunteers?"
Lauren kept her head down. Being Lawkeeper meant she wouldn't be advancing to Alchemist. Brutus was too dumb to even think about it.
"Yakob. You hold the Will of the Emperor already. You are Lawkeeper now," Enoch made to sit on thin air, and a skeleton rose from the earth to meet his descent. He sat on the dead body with the air of a throne.
"Yes," Yakob said, looking down at the scroll he dropped in the scuffle with Vanii, "...sir." He bent to pick it up and thumbed it, the whirring sound of the spinning eerily comforting in the wake of so much death.
"Do you know why their skin falls off?" Enoch leaned farther into his skeletal seat. "Why they rot? The Emperor's great Tomb Order of the Trenmir, a menagerie of necrosis in all its hideous forms! Why?"
"Why, sir?" Lauren asked.
"They all know it will happen, we tell them it is a great honour to be so ingratiated with their power that it reflects on their body. To hold dominion over death but fill one's lungs with air? Our existence is proof of the Gods' dereliction, an accusation of their powerlessness. The Drai are the dregs of a dying world and the Emperor's Alchemy delivers mana into the hands of the common man, the hard workers, the protectors of the innocent. The Trenmir are the great wall holding back the tides of chaos. The Tomb Order are the understanders of death, so describe it.
I can assure you friends, death is not the end. Death is a comma, a breath we take before moving on. Our mana kills us and we carry on. It is a cycle. A river," he winked at Yakob, "that feeds into itself.
Our Putresco's understand this. They come to know it intimately, but I fear Darian's progress to this knowledge is slowing. He has seen the land of the dead, my intimate realm, and yet still fails to grasp its true nature. There may be opportunities for promotion ahead, for the enterprising Trenmir agent who captures Amos Aquila."
"What's the land of the dead look like?" Brutus slurred.
"It is not for you to know. Understand simply that it is a place between places, a world above and beneath our own from which souls are plucked like fruit and dropped when ripe. From this place I have learned of a transgression.
I have stood upon the shore of death and been its lighthouse, I have been the rocks that ships dash upon in mad fury. The newest Drai has crossed the boundary between death and life. He threatens our strength and that is why we hunt him.
Even after all this time, Amos Aquila yet lives."
Yakob's hurt lurched. His brother is alive. Thank the stars.
"Bring me his head, TU-BV14."